Climate Change

[Dr Jon]

I thought it would be useful to have a thread dedicated to Climate Change and to log CC milestones, as I reckon we're going to be seeing more and more of these over the coming years.

I'll start the ball rolling with North Pole above freezing

It’s happened. An early-season Scandinavian heatwave has pushed above freezing temperatures all the way into the central Arctic.

A powerful atmospheric blocking pattern that spawned record 80+ degree temperatures in Scandinavia this weekend has elongated, stretching all the way into the central Arctic. As the bulge increased in amplitude, it brought warmer air with it. Temperatures at the North Pole over the past week ranged from 5-10 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, we are seeing temps around 33 degrees, a range of ‘warmth’ usually reserved for mid summer.

 

[Dr Jon]

Edward Davey speech: Climate Change, Acting on the Science

 

[ferrelhadley]

I thought it would be useful to have a thread dedicated to Climate Change and to log CC milestones, as I reckon we're going to be seeing more and more of these over the coming years.

I'll start the ball rolling with North Pole above freezing

Its only really been the Barent Sea, Scandanavia has been on a heat wave but the areas around the Bearing and Greenland have been unusually cold.

Something wicked the way of the Arctic Archipelago comes though. 15 motherless centigrade may be on the cards if these models hold out. Though it looks a rather unstable system, so much warm air that far north in early June.

 

[Dr Jon]

German floods

Rescuers used helicopters to pluck families from rooftops in the southern German town of Deggendorf on Wednesday as the Danube flood crisis continues.
Meanwhile more than 30,000 people in the eastern city of Halle have been told to leave their homes after rivers reached their highest level in 400 years.
Floodwater is also threatening parts of Austria and the Czech Republic.

Record floods continue in North and Central Europe

Floods Threaten Central European Businesses

Record rainfall in Little Rock, Hanover, Melbourne

 

[MikeMcc]

CO2 concentration about to break the 400ppm level, we've already had a few individual measurements above that level, but we're certain to see the monthly and annual figures go through it this year. The May figure for Mauna Loa is 399.89ppm.

http://co2now.org/

 

[Dr Jon]

Stu Ostro's PDF is interesting and ongoing.

 

[Dr Jon]

410,000 Square Kilometres of Sea Ice Lost in Two Days

 

[Dr Jon]

Up to half of all birds threatened by climate change

 

[ferrelhadley]

The 10 Dumbest Things Ever Said About Global Warming

Not featuring Michelle Bachmans 'natural product of nature' line.

 

[Dr Jon]

I see that the Colorado Wildfires are still burning and that thousands are dead from extreme flooding in Uttarakhand. Both remind me of this recent post by Paul Beckwith:

What can you do?

Go talk to your politicians and friends about climate change and the need to slash fossil fuel emissions. Immediately. Cut and paste my comments above and post them on facebook, send them to newspapers, and educate yourself on the science behind all the above linkages. Leave my name on or take it off and plagiarize all you want, just get this knowledge out there...

Climate Commission report: 80% of fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground

 

[Dr Jon]

Just seen this:
Arctic Heatwave Sizzles Northeastern Europe With 92 Degree Temperatures, Mangled Jet Stream Hosts Record Canadian Floods, and the Persistent Arctic Cyclone is Coring Through the North Pole

Any one of these extreme weather events — a heatwave in Arctic Europe, immense floods never before seen in Canada, and an anomalous storm coring through the thickest sea ice — would be evidence that human caused climate change has radically altered the weather. Instead, we have all three occurring over the span of as many days. It is a pace of extreme events that is both troubling and astounding. And each has been affected by the sea ice loss, ocean, ice sheet, and atmospheric warming, loss of summer snow cover, and extreme changes to the circum-polar Jet Stream brought about by human caused climate change

Hansen's dice are rolling

 

[Dr Jon]

62 Years of Global Warming in 13 Seconds

 

[Dr Jon]

Why Climate Change Policy is in a Mess and How to Fix it



Potty weather in the US:
Record-Breaking Heat Engulfs the West
(thanks to xraymike79)

 

[ferrelhadley]

 

[Dr Jon]

The Sleeping Climate Giant

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Forget that shit. The new thing is global cooling.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387098,00.asp

http://www.almanac.com/sunspotupdate

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/

 

[Yossarian]

From the first link:

With temperatures rising worldwide due to global warming, though, maybe a cooling-off period is exactly what the planet needs. But for any hoping a weak solar cycle could provide a way to offset climate change, you can forget it. As Pesnell points out, "These are two independent effects. The solar signal will go up for awhile, but it's not an offset because if you just wait a couple of years, the sun will come back. They don't cancel each other out."

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

From the first link:

With temperatures rising worldwide due to global warming, though, maybe a cooling-off period is exactly what the planet needs. But for any hoping a weak solar cycle could provide a way to offset climate change, you can forget it. As Pesnell points out, "These are two independent effects. The solar signal will go up for awhile, but it's not an offset because if you just wait a couple of years, the sun will come back. They don't cancel each other out."

I'm glad to see you read that article.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I read somewhere that current human contribution to atmospheric carbon, is about 5% of the total.

 

[fogbat]

I read somewhere that wee tiny people called Borrowers live in our houses.

 

[MikeMcc]

I read somewhere that current human contribution to atmospheric carbon, is about 5% of the total.

You read something that was wrong then...

It's pretty demonstrable that humans contributed pretty much all of the excess CO2 - A simple analysis of the quantities burnt (takes less than 2 sides of A4 paper and not even O-level maths..), O2 depletion, isotope analysis, etc.

 

[Dr Jon]

Melt Puddles, Distant Open Water Visible at North Pole Camera 2

Arctic melt hits food security in bitter taste of life on a hotter planet

Climate change is happening too quickly for species to adapt
- I suspect that this includes us!

 

[Bernie Gunther]

You read something that was wrong then...

It's pretty demonstrable that humans contributed pretty much all of the excess CO2 - A simple analysis of the quantities burnt (takes less than 2 sides of A4 paper and not even O-level maths..), O2 depletion, isotope analysis, etc.

Key word here being "excess"

One favourite disinformation tactic used by professional pathological liars in the PR industry to deceive the public about human CO2 emissions, is to count the natural CO2 emissions, but not count the natural take-up of CO2 that balances them out.

Then they compare anthropogenic emissions with the resulting huge, but in this context meaningless, number and dishonestly claim that human CO2 emissions are insignificant.

See e.g. http://grist.org/climate-energy/natural-emissions-dwarf-human-emissions/

 

[Dr Jon]

Massive ice sheets melting at rate of 300bn tonnes a year

 

[Dr Jon]

North Pole Web Camera 2 Adrift in Large, Expanding Melt Pool

 

[Miss Caphat]

fuck.

 

[Dr Jon]

Unsurprisingly, publications like the Torygraph, the Economist and others pushing the "business as usual" agenda, are downplaying and trivialising this news.


An extraordinary - and worrying - insight into the mind of Owen Paterson

Watch thou for the fuckwit!

 

[Dr Jon]

thanks to robertscribbler

 

[ferrelhadley]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/...mate-scientist-and-how-we-should-deal-with-it

Michael Mann sued for defamation last year. The National Review moved that scientific fact is elusive and amounts to opinion and attempted to have the suit thrown out of court. On July the 22, the judge denied their motion, and he did so in such a way that suggested that he considers Michael Mann's case to be pretty strong.

In general, the decision suggests that there is a reasonable chance that Mann can show the "Defendants disregarded the falsity of their statements and did so with reckless disregard." The ruling notes that the organizations have called for Mann's investigation multiple times; "if anyone should have been aware of the accuracy (or findings that the work of Plaintiff is sound), it would be the [National Review] Defendants." Thus, continued attacks on Mann may be construed as a reckless disregard for the truth.

 

[Dr Jon]

I saw that story on scribbler's blog:
DC Superior Court Finds Indication of ‘Actual Malice’ in Climate Change Deniers’ Repeated Attacks on Michael Mann

The evidence that temperatures were rocketing higher at an unprecedented rate would mean that certain agencies — primarily fossil fuel special interest groups — would bear the brunt of responsibility for any damages caused by rapid warming. And rather than live up to this responsibility by using current assets to rapidly transition to other, less polluting, energy sources and to work to mitigate the damage, they instead decided to attack the messenger — Michael Mann.

As climate scientist Jennifer Francis noted last week during her Congressional testimony — the climate science misleaders are a big part of the problem inherent to human caused global warming and climate change. They have prevented us from understanding the threat and, thus far, have considerably slowed our efforts in response.

The greed and criminal stupidity of the denialist/crapitalist vermin is beyond contempt.